Moon Man Walk

Play (2015)
by James Ijames
Directed by Lyndsay Allyn Cox
Gloucester Stage Company
Gloucester, MA
September 10-26, 2026

With Dom Carter (Spencer); Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle (Esther); Lorraine Victoria Kanyike (Petrushka); Dereks Thomas (Astronaut)

Lovers — Dom Carter as Spencer
Lorraine Victoria Kanyike as Petrushka
in “Moon Man Walk”
Photo: Benjamin Rose Photography
Courtesy of Gloucester Stage Company

In the wake of his mother’s death, a man with an absent father seeks more about his past.

Spencer (Dom Carter), whose beloved mother Esther (Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle) has died, returns to Philadelphia, where he grew up, to recover some information about his mysteriously estranged father. Along the way, he encounters the animated and interesting Petrushka, who accompanies him in his odyssey.

This curious drama features some interesting performances in which the two women’s roles are quite forthright and outwardly expressed, while the men’s roles are rather subdued.

As Esther, Spencer’s mother, Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle offers a spirited and lively performance, full of an energetic directness that comes across as sometimes forthright and as sometimes domineering. In probing this somewhat complex combination, Kiwanuka-Woernle offers an interesting and captivating interpretation. As Petrushka, Lorraine Victoria Kanyike is lively, animated and gives a enthusiastically broad and engrossing portrayal.

Dereks Thomas as The Astronaut, Lorraine Victoria Kanyike as Petrushka, Dom Carter as Spencer, Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle as Esther in 'Moon Man Walk' — Dereks Thomas as The Astronaut
Lorraine Victoria Kanyike as Petrushka
Dom Carter as Spencer
Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle as Esther
in “Moon Man Walk”
Photo: Benjamin Rose Photography
Courtesy of Gloucester Stage Company

As Spencer, the noted Boston actor Dom Carter, who did a great job last year as Martin Luther King in The Front Porch Arts Collective’s stirring production of The Mountaintop, here offers a quietly appealing performance. The mysterious astronaut, whose actual identity is revealed in the spoilers section below, has a subdued and restrained quality that is brought forth competently by Dereks Thomas.

There are some oddities and limitations in this script. When we see the scene in which Spencer’s father and mother are having an argument (see spoilers section), one finds it difficult to quite grasp the father’s arguments and the mother’s responses. Not much is revealed in the interaction, other than the conflict, which draws away from quite a bit of the underlying drama. And, why Petrushka becomes such a central figure for Spencer in the immediate wake of his mother’s death, how they become quite so engaged in a short time, and how intimately she acts towards him, are all quite mysterious. Instead of more time spent delineating some of the implicit qualities of this relationship, the script spends a bit too much time on side trails, even with a brief scene about flatulence which is completely gratuitous.

Extra info: contains spoilers

The astronaut is Spencer’s father and, in that role, the extraterrestrial identity represents the elusiveness of a missing goal of one’s affections. In the flashback, Spencer’s mother and father are shown arguing over a drug deal in which his father is engaged. The father offers, quite innocently, only that he is dealing drugs to provide the best for his family. There is a brief argument and Spencer’s mother storms off. Spencer’s father’s argument on his own behalf is very brief and limited, leaving one with the hope for more explanation of who he is, or, at the very least, a bit more depiction of the struggle between Spencer’s parents. At the end, Spencer has discovered that his father has been in jail serving a sentence for drug dealing and the mystery of his whereabouts is answered. When, at the end, the astronaut reappears after this revelation, the helmet is removed and we see that it is Petrushka, an indication that now Spencer’s emotional challenge is to discover who she is and what their relationship might mean. It’s a nice allegorical touch, and one gets the significance of the idea; a bit more fleshing out of these relationships might have given this suggested motif a bit more dramatic weight.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)

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